Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,23

making her all too easy to follow.

He’d hand it to her, however. She did move… quickly. With the rapidity and stealth of a footpad, but also with the regal bearing of the queen she’d been in this household.

Faye reached a hired hack and paused.

“Don’t stop,” he murmured to himself. “Keep going.” Aye, it was a wonder she’d not already found herself brought low in these streets. And he, jaded as the English day was cruel, found himself in an odd place of rather liking the young lady.

Nay, not that.

He didn’t like anyone. He appreciated her courage. Her tenacity. Particularly coming from the peerage, who were notoriously cowardly and weak.

As defiant as she’d proven to be from their first meeting at Newgate, the lady looked squarely across the street, her gaze landing on the place where he now covertly watched her.

And then she drew herself up into the carriage, shut the door, and was gone.

Tynan remained there, staring at that spot where she’d last stood.

He’d had countless dealings with people over the years.

Through any number of those dealings, he’d lied about something or another. Anything that put his own self-preservation first above whatever the person clamoring for a favor sought. The world hadn’t cared about Tynan Wylie, or his mother or sister. Why should he give a rat’s damn about a single one of them? Nay, survival wasn’t enough. Survival didn’t see a man fed or comfortable or safe. Thriving was the ultimate goal and prize. That was why it had been all too easy to take those twenty guineas, even when they’d clearly meant more to her than most of the people from whom he’d accepted bribes or coins.

So why now did the memory of her forlorn eyes as she’d parted with those funds remain with him still?

Why?

“Who was that?”

Tynan gasped and spun about.

Finn stared up at him, his head tilted as he studied him.

“Finn,” he greeted blankly. That hadn’t been the first time he’d startled that day. And unlike before, when he’d underestimated Faye Poplar and hadn’t considered the possibility she’d followed him, this time he’d been woolgathering like a damned debutante. “I don’t know. Or, that is, I didn’t know her before today.” And he wouldn’t know her after it. He headed for the kitchen with Finn following. “She’s the one who saw me pardoned.”

The child’s footfalls were quick and noisy as he increased his stride to match Tynan’s longer one.

“Ye’re going to work with that one?” the boy asked when they reached the kitchens.

Tynan blanched. “Good God, absolutely not.” He fetched his clean shirt and drew it on. Stuffing it into the waist of his trousers, he reached next for his jacket.

“Ye took her money.”

Which begged the question: What else had Finn seen or heard? And damned if even Tynan wasn’t capable of a blush after all. “That, I did,” he said, unapologetically owning his duplicity.

Tynan gathered his cloak and tossed it around his shoulders.

The too-loyal-for-his-own-good boy followed closely behind as he went. “Ye’re coming back.”

“I am,” he promised. That much was true.

Now, however, he had more pressing matters to attend. Ones that certainly didn’t include the tempting Faye Poplar and her hauntingly quixotic voice.

Chapter 7

Never once in Faye’s entire life, had she been kissed.

Or been touched in any way fueled by passion or desire.

That was, by anyone other than her own curious self in the dead of night when the world slept, and she was free to explore her own wickedness. But even as she’d brought herself to pleasure, biting her lip lest someone might hear, she’d wondered what it would be to lose herself in the arms of a man.

She’d been certain she would never know a man’s embrace, but that hadn’t prevented her from imagining what passion would be like, from dreaming of her first kiss and of a man’s hands upon her.

And then yesterday had dawned, and she’d tasted a different kind of bliss—the kind she’d thought never to know. On the corner of Newgate Street, no less.

That kiss had consumed her.

Both of them had.

The memory of his thumb brushing her bottom lip was equally potent, for it had been a subtle caress that had left her longing for more of him.

From the moment she’d left Tynan to the point at which she was to again see him, Faye had been gripped by thoughts of him.

It was pathetic to be fantasizing about their embraces, when she had a mission to focus on. As such, she’d done what any young woman in her situation